


Where the heart is, and other cliches

by loracarol



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Fluff, Foster families, Gen, Runaway teenager, WAFF, everyone's an adult but Jack Frost, human!AU, mostly fluff even when I know that it would be unrealistic, no ships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-20 05:58:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loracarol/pseuds/loracarol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack ran away, now he's coming home. </p><p>Human!AU with Tooth as Jack's foster mother. </p><p>No ships.</p><p>(To be updated as soon as I hear back from my beta.) :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> This is a human!AU I've been working on and off for fun. It's mostly going to be WAFF, and some aspects of the way things work my be a bit handwaved. Tooth's name in the books is Toothiana, so for the human!AU, I've switched it to Ana. 
> 
> Please don't take the plot too seriously, though if you have constructive criticism about my writing, I wouldn't mind hearing it. :)

Jack saw the young girl running towards him, and he knelt down. "Hey baby tooth" he said, when he was at eye level.

The seven year old stopped, and frowned up at him. "You left." she said angrily. Not even the use of Jack's nickname for her made her smile.

"I'm sorry. But I came back?" 

"You made Mama cry." The young girl said again, still angry. 

Jack winced. "I wrote her a note that said not to worry..." but he knew that a note would never make up for leaving in the middle of the night, sneaking out from his foster mother's home to vanish on the rails. 

It had been stupid, but he had been so  _scared_. More then scared, he had been  _terrified_. 

"I missed you", the girl said, sniffing. "Catch me Jack?" She asked him, rubbing her eyes.

"Of course." He said, he could do that much, at least, after jumping the fence in her backyard, and scaring the daylights out of her.

As soon as he stood up, she launched herself into his arms, all tears and a runny nose as she sniffed, and tears fell down her cheeks. 

"I missed you too" he said. "Leaving was... It was really stupid. I'm sorry." 

Putting the girl down, Jack looked up at the house with trepidation. It was so close, he could walk right through the door, but what if Ana was angry with him? What if she hated him? He wanted to run _away_ , but he couldn't, not with the girl looking up at him so expectantly, and holding onto his hand. 

Inside the house, Ana looked out her window, and saw her foster-daughter in the backyard, talking to a stranger with blonde hair. He was facing away from her at an angle, and she panicked as she realized that somehow a stranger had hopped the back fence.

"Get away from her!" she yelled, as she ran out the door. The stranger looked up, and she stopped abruptly. 

"...Jack...?" she whispered, stunned. She hadn't seen hide nor hair of him in  _months_. He had bleached his hair, and he was far too skinny, and he had no shoes on (which Ana didn't want to think about because it was the middle of December) but it was still Jack. 

"Hey Ana." he said, not quite looking at her. 

Ana had a million questions, but she held her tongue. They could wait until he was warm, clean, and had had something to eat. 

He was  _home_. 

She walked closer to him, not believing that he was real. She had dreamed that he would show up again, but it was always just a fantasy. Brushing one hand against his cheek, she had to hold back a sob. He was so cold...

She hugged him tightly. "Come inside, we can get you cleaned up, get you something to eat, get you _warm_ ," she said. She was angry, still, but instead of the near-constant fear that she had lived with since Jack had vanished, there was a kind of relief settling in. 

Jack stood frozen in her grip, staring at her in shock. 

"I can come back, just like that?" His voice was rough, and his eyes were suspiciously moist. 

"You always could" Ana said, tearing up herself. "Now please, come inside, and let's get you  _warm_."

As Jack took a shower to warm up, Ana picked up her phone. 

She had calls to make, and one simple truth to tell: Her son had come home.


	2. In which there is a naked Jack (but you don't get to see him)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ICE is an acronym meaning "In Case of Emergency". In theory, you put your emergency contacts in your phone as ICE: [name] so that paramedics and what not know who to call if there is an emergency.

Ana flipped through her numbers on her phone quickly, reaching [ICE BUNNYMUND] first, before shaking her head, and going to [ICE NICK ST. NORTH]. While she waited for the him to answer, she took several deep breathes, and tried to calm down. 

"Nick, I need you to come over!" She said, glad that her voice barely cracked. "And I need you to pick up Bunny and Sandy on your way."

Bunny would complain; he always did about riding with the Russian man, but Bunny didn't actually have a car, and this wasn't news that could wait for him to walk to her house.

"Do they know that yet?" Nick asked, Bunny's opinion on his driving common knowledge.

"Not yet, I was going to call them next."

"Very well, I will be right over, da?" The older Russian man said, "this sounds important." 

"It is."

"Is it about...?"  

"It's about Jack." 

Ana heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line, then "I will fly over to your house, and I will call Sandy on my way." 

"Thanks Nick." Next was [ICE E. A. BUNNYMUND]. She knew that he would complain (which was probably why Nick had insisted he would call Sandy, and left Bunny to her), but even he wouldn't kick up too much of a fuss when he heard it was about Jack. 

Bunny didn't answer his phone until the third ring, each one seemingly taking an eternity. 

"Bunny, Nick is on his way to pick you up. It's about Jack." 

All his spluttered arguments about Nick's driving crashed to a halt when he heard those three words. 

"I'll be waiting" he said, hanging up.

After Bunny hung up, Ana froze for a moment, hoping that she wouldn't be overwhelming Jack, but it really wasn't fair to not let the other's know that Jack had returned, and telling them over the phone just seemed cruel. 

Speaking of Jack...

The shower was still running when she bounded up the stairs, which meant that she had some time still. Jack's room was the same as it had been left, (cleaned up a little, but mostly the same), and she found new (clean and warm) clothing for him with ease. 

Knocking on the bathroom door, she was surprised to find her foster daughter opening the door gravely. Once the door was opened, she jumped back on the counter, swinging her heels against the cabinet door.

"I brought you new clothing, Jack, and a towel." Ana said, stacking them on the counter next to her daughter. 

"Thanks!" the shout was muffled, but warm. 

"Also, the others are coming over." 

There was no response.

"You don't have to see them, not if you don't want to, but they deserve to know that you're back, and if I told them over the phone, they'd come over anyway." She continued. 

"Anyway, when you've gotten dressed, you can come down to the kitchen for some food, okay?" 

"...Is Babs still out there?" Jack asked. 

"She is, but we'll be leaving to go and make lunch, right baby?" Ana said. 

Her daughter looked mutinous, and shook her head no. "Jack might leave again" she said, and Ana's heart broke a little.

The shower turned off, and Jack poked his head out of the shower, careful to use the curtain to hide the rest of himself. 

"Babs, I promise that I'm not going to leave, not right now, but I would like to get dressed in private." 

She looked at him, then asked in a quite voice "...promise?" 

"Promise. If it makes you feel better, you can sit right outside the bathroom door, okay?" 

"But what if you climb out the window?" 

"I'll talk to you the entire time, so you know I'm not leaving." 

"Okay." 

When they left the bathroom, her daughter sat down in front of the bathroom door. Ana had to smile at that, but it was tinged with sadness at  _why_ her daughter was feeling so insecure. 

"Are you there Babs?" Jack's voice asked, through the wall, and as Ana walked away, she could hear them still talking to each other. 

\---------------------

Picking up the clothes pile that Ana had left, Jack found himself tearing up again, just barely. These were  _his_  clothes. Those were  _his_ pants,  _his_ shirt and sweatshirt, hell, even a pair of underwear that he vaguely recognized as his own as he slid them on. 

"What are you doing right now?" Babs asked him through the door, and he answered her;

"Putting on my pants." 

"Now what?"

"Putting on a shirt."

"And now?"

_"Also, the others are coming over."_

The words echoed through Jack's head as he  slid the sweatshirt on, basking in it's warmth, continuing to talk to Babs about what he was doing. 

Once he was all dressed, he stepped opened the door carefully, in case she was leaning up against it. As soon as he was out, she latched onto his hand, and they walked to the kitchen. 

There, Ana was making grilled cheese, and there was tomato soup on the stove. 

"I don't want to start you on anything too heavy- when was the last time you ate anyway? A decent meal, I mean?" Ana asked, torn between looking him over, and paying attention to the stove so that he'd have something edible. 

"Um... I'm not sure." Jack had to admit. 

"Come here." 

Jack went over to her, and while Babs held onto one hand, she held onto the other, making grilled cheese and tomato soup one handed. 

"We missed you." She said quietly. "Why did you leave?" 

"I'm sorry." 

"That's not what I asked" Ana said, sniffing, before squeezing his hand, and letting it drop so that she could take the pans off the stove. "Now go sit down, I'll bring the food to you. 

Jack instead went to the cupboards to try and grab dishes to set the table. 

"No, I said sit down Jack, I'll get that." Ana said firmly. With all the grime from wherever he had been washed off, there were still shadows under his eyes, and while the hot water of the shower had given him a decent flush to his skin, he was still far too pale. 

He nodded, and sat down.

Jack started eating his firsts while Ana made more sandwiches at the stove. They were really good, and he wanted to set upon the first one like a starving hound, but memories of the few times he had done that while traveling, and the way he had vomited up the food later slowed his hand.

He had still eaten three sandwiches by the time the doorbell rang.

"Your room is still set up the way you left it, if you want to wait up there while I invite the others in" Ana said softly. 

Jack looked at the table. It would be so easy to do that, to hide in his room (and it was left the way he had left it?) while she explained, to refuse to answer, to say anything, to  _hide_. 

But he was sick of running away. 

He had been running away the last three? Four months? He didn't even know anymore- but he wasn't going to run again. 

"No, I'll go answer the door" he heard himself say, standing up. He was shaking, trembling, but this was something he had to do.

When he got up, Babs grabbed his hand again, and he smiled down at her. The doorbell rang again, and as he walked towards it, Ana walked beside him, giving him an awkward side hug as she did so. 

"Ana, if you don't open the door soon-!" Bunny was saying as Jack opened the door. 

For a moment, all was silent as Nick stood in the doorway and stared at him, his blonde hair confusing them Nick half a second, before he murmured "боже мой", and swept the teen into a hug. 


	3. In which there are many hugs, and not much plot

Jack hadn't always enjoyed hugs from Nick. In fact, when they had first met, Jack had refused to let himself be touched at all. 

But that was the past, and as Nick held onto Jack, Jack found himself trembling with relief. 

He had missed this. 

He breathed in the smell of Nick's workshop, freshly carved wood and peppermint, and once again he found himself tearing up. 

"Are you going to let the rest of us in, so we can see what's going on?" Bunny asked sarcastically, but his heart wasn't really into it. Bunny couldn't tell what had happened; Nick was so _large_  that all the other men could tell was that he had suddenly stopped in the doorway, and was leaving them all out in the cold, but his use of Russian, and the way he had just  _stopped_...

Nick had to stop hugging Jack so they could move further into the house, and let the other's in, and Jack took the moment to surreptitiously wipe his eyes. 

Bunny and the diminutive Sandy walked in, Bunny hopping on the edge of his toes much like Ana had been doing earlier, though his was out of nervousness, and anxiety, rather then the great joy that Ana had felt earlier. 

He first looked over at Ana, automatically, before his eyes were caught by Jack's bleached hair. His eyes widened as he realized that it was _Jack's_ face underneath the pale hue, and _Jack_ who was standing there in the doorway, playing with his the string that tied his hood, and not looking at any of them. 

"You stupid idiot!" Bunnymund said, walking to the boy in three large steps. "Where the hell have you been!?"

Jack flinched back, and the others glared at Bunny, but he didn't care. Just as Ana was about to tell him off, he pulled Jack into a hug of his own, one that was awkward, and stiff, but still a hug.

"You idiot" he said gruffly, "we were worried." 

His hug lasted barely a moment, before he was stepping to the side, and glaring at anyone who dared to comment. 

The last man to come in was Sanderson, a shorter man with dusty blond hair. He did not talk, using sign language or a small pad of paper he always carried around as his primary means of communication. 

He did not need either of those to communicate with Jack at that point in time, though, his wide smile and gentle hug saying everything.

All of a sudden, Jack's stomach growled, and he looked down, uncomfortable. 

"I was just making grilled cheese and tomato soup if anyone would like some" Ana said, "no asking questions until Jack is ready, and no interrupting his eating. If any of you cause trouble, or stress him out, you'll need to leave. Understood?" 

The others nodded, noting Jack's pale skin, and the shadows that hadn't been there before. All of them were bursting with questions, but they could wait.


	4. To the past and back again (an interlude in two parts)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry if the update schedule on this is weird; I decided to start writing this right before finals week for some reason. >_>;

Sitting around the table was tense, but still comforting, all of the others doing their best to stick to Ana's rules, and not ask any questions. It was obvious in the way that they would stop, just before saying something, or open their mouth only to close it abruptly that they _had_ questions, but they were waiting for him to be ready, which was... Nice.

Homey. 

He had gotten use to a kind of loneliness, once, before he had met North, Bunny, Sandy, and of course Ana and Babs, but their arrival into his life had turned it upside-down, and when he had run, the loneliness had cut him like a knife. He had thought he could handle it, after all, before Jack met those who sat around the table with him, he had been bounced around to different foster homes for the last five years. He could handle loneliness again.

But he had gotten _used_ to it, to the way that it was with the others, he couldn't just  _forget_ that.

Ana wasn't just a caretaker to him; her house _was_ his house, she _was_ his mother, Babs _was_ his sister. It was unlike many of the foster homes he had lived in before.  

To be fair, not all of the foster homes were horrible; there was the family up north who had treated Jack like their own son, and had only sent him away when the husband had been laid off, and there was the lady  in Ontario who had cared for him until her hip gave out, and really he had had a some luck with foster families, if you got right down to it... 

...But there was still always the times that he didn't have good luck, and it ended up with a bad fit, with a family who expected him to anything/everything other then a son, a place where he just didn't fit in, even though he _tried_ , and he was getting _older_.

It wouldn't have been so bad if Jack had anything of the life he lived before he woke up in the hospital to turn to, but he had nothing, not even memories of his first ten years of life, and while his caseworker kept claiming that there were keepsakes, according to him, there were also laws in place to prevent Jack from seeing them until he turned eighteen- if then at all, and he couldn't even Google his own name, because Pitchner had gotten it changed, claiming it was for Jack's own safety! And Jack Smith was a really boring name to try and Google.  

He had three years until he turned eighteen, and was thrust into limbo; if he wasn't officially adopted by anyone, he'd be out on his own. He had already had to switch schools twice during his freshman year, something that did not bode well for actually graduating with a high school degree, which wouldn't have been so bad if he had any skills, or could stay in one place long enough to try and apprentice himself out to someone- _anyone_.

The foster home he was living in right before the winter holidays was one of the homes where the caretakers were indifferent to the older boys, and only slightly less indifferent to the younger boys. 

Not the worse place, but not the best, either, but it meant that Jack could do basically whatever he wanted, and as long as it didn't mean trouble for the caretakers, he was okay. 

As such, he was sitting on the rooftop right outside his window, and waiting in the cool just-winter air when he saw the car pull up to the house. It was a nice car, a shiny red, and Jack waited to see who would be getting out- or if they were going to get out at all.

But they did.  

The first man to step out was a taller, tan man with grey hair who practically bolted out of the car, crouched down, and looked the ground as he trembled, and tried to catch his breath. 

The roof top was low enough that Jack could hear every syllable as it puffed out of his mouth in a cloud of vapor, but high enough that they wouldn't see him if they weren't looking, so he decided to listen in. 

"That is the _last_ time I'm riding with you you crazy bas-" the man said, and Jack was surprised to find that he was Australian. 

"Now, now, Bunny, there are children!" The other man said. He had gotten out of the car after- what was it, _Bunny_?- from the driver's side, and Jack was surprised to find that he was even larger, larger around, taller, his biceps were _huge_ , and he had a giant cascade of white hair forming a beard over his rotund belly. He was also Russian, a fact that Jack decided to tuck away for later. 

Jack looked at the others, and was surprised to see that the smallest of the three men was looking up at him. He had pale blonde hair, and he was wearing a yellow jacket that should have made him look absurd, but it didn't. He smiled up at Jack, and made a "shush" gesture, and winked, before looking away. 

The last person to get out of the car was a lady with a young girl. The lady had darker skin, and while Jack knew that she looked Asian, he wasn't sure where she was from. Both the woman and the girl had black hair, the girl with it tied back in a braid, and the woman with it in a no-nonsense bun. 

The girl was looking around with interested, and she spotted Jack before he could tuck himself back into his room. 

"Hi boy!" she said, waving. 

That got the other's attention, and the blond man gave Jack a quiet shrug as if to say "what can you do?" 

"You shouldn't be up there!" The "Bunny" man called up. "What are you even thinking, or are you not?" 

He received an elbow to the gut courtesy of the short man, and he crossed his arms, and looked away, "you know I'm right" he mumbled. 

"My name is Nicholas St. North" the Russian said, "and we are looking for the home of Mr. and Mrs. Anderson. Is this the right place?" 

"It is. Give me a second to come down". Before The woman could finish saying that it wasn't necessary, he had hopped over to the tree in the front yard, and jumped over from the roof to the largest of the tree's branches. Swinging to and fro from them, he climbed down the tree, to stand on the ground in front of their amazed eyes. 

"Bloody show pony." The Australian said, rolling his eyes. 

"Very clever!" The Russ- Nicholas- said, "very naughty, but very clever. Allow me to introduce the others, Edgar A. Bunnymund" he pointed at the Australian, "Sanderson Manchester" he pointed at the shortest man, "and Dr. Ana Fisher, and her foster daughter, Barbara."

"I'm Jack" Jack said, unsure what was happening. 

"It's so nice to meet you!" Ana said, after the aftershocks of Jack's stunt had worn off. 

Sanderson had pulled out a notepad during all the talking, and he had written in a neat cursive "hello Jack, you're just who we wanted to see." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As much as I adore Sanderson Mansnoozie's name in the context of the books and movies, I just can't with regards to this AU, same with Toothiana. 
> 
> I don't have that much of a problem with Bunnymund's name, though. Not sure why. /shrug


End file.
